1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to an electrical connector, and more particularly to an electrical connector with light-emitting devices (LEDs).
2. Description of the Prior Art
Following the development of network industry, a variety of types of connectors are proposed to meet different requirements. The connectors general have LEDs for indicating full mating of complementary connectors or operating states of the connectors.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,227,911, issued to Boutros on May 8, 2001, discloses an electrical connector having a housing, and two LED sub-modules. The LED sub-modules have pockets for accommodating LEDs, and grooves for accommodating the leads of the LEDs. The leads of the LEDs extend horizontally before the LEDs are assembled to the LED sub-modules, then the leads of the LEDs are bent vertically after they are assembled to the LED sub-modules. The leads of the LEDs are soldered to a printed circuit board (PCB) of an outer device. However, as the leads of the LEDs are bent downwardly to be soldered to the PCB, as the standard LEDs has a standard length, so the leads of the LEDs can not have enough length to be soldered to the PCB after they are bent if the connectors are a little higher.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,978,317, issued to Pocrass on Dec. 18, 1990, discloses an electrical connector. The electrical connector of Pocrass has a housing, an LED positioned within the housing, the LED has a plurality of lead wires. The housing has a top wall and a bottom wall, the lead wires of the LED extending along the top wall of the housing, bent perpendicular to the bottom wall and extending through the bottom wall and then plug into a PCB. However, as the leads of the LEDs of Pocrass patent are bent downwardly to extend through the PCB, as the standard LEDs has a standard length, so the leads of the LEDs can not have enough length to extend through the PCB after they are bent when the connector is a little higher or be stacked with other connectors.
Hence, an improved connector is needed to eliminate the above mentioned defects of the conventional connectors.
The main object of the present invention is to provide an electrical connector with LEDs that each has two parts leads.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a method of making contact elements which electrically connecting LEDs and printed circuit board (PCB) of an outer device.
An electrical connector of the present invention has an insulative main housing, a subassembly having a magnetic assembly and a contact array assembly, a stacked Universal Serial Bus connector (USB), a molded assembly, and a metal shield. Each LED has a plurality of leads, a free end of the middle lead of the LED is bent perpendicularly and extending horizontally thereafter below the other leads. The molded assembly comprises a plastic part, and a first and second contact elements insert molded in the plastic part. The first and second contact elements have engaging sections, soldering sections, and retaining sections connecting the soldering sections with the engaging sections. The plastic part has a pair of supporting posts extending horizontally on an upper portion thereof. Each supporting posts defines a channel, one of the channel receives one of the soldering sections of the contact elements. The free ends of the leads are respectively soldered to soldering sections of the first and second contact elements.
Other objects, advantages and novel features of the invention will become more apparent from the following detailed description of a preferred embodiment when taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.